The PopCult Toybox: JoeLanta in Video
March 25, 2014 by rudy panucci
This is it! A collection of musical montages that attempt to capture the spirit of the 2014 edition of JoeLanta/The Great Atlanta Toy Convention, the huge GI Joe/toy show that we were honored to be a guest of from March 14 and 16. We’ve tried to compress more than two days of fun, toys and excitement into a concentrated 38 minute package. This extended report looks at E.J.’s “Swapapalooza,” the Parachute Drop, custom figures and diormas, some of the panels, the guests (including freshly-announced inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame, Scott Hall), the dealers rooms, the car show and more. You’ll also be treated to a full song by Radio Cult, the official band of JoeLanta.
The introductory segments were ad-libbed at the last minute, and as such aren’t 100% accurate. After surveying the vast scope of footage captured in Atlanta, it was decided that the panels and tour videos would be edited and posted first, rather than after this report (which took five days to edit). A complete guide to our other JoeLanta videos can be found as our Sunday Evening Videos this week.
JoeLanta and The Great Atlanta Toy Convention are staged to benefit The Cody Lane Memorial Toy and Diorama Museum. You can learn more about the project here. Here’s the description of JoeLanta from their website, “For more than a decade, JoeLanta has been an annual event bringing toy collectors and pop culture enthusiasts from across the country together in Atlanta to celebrate the joys of toys and friendship! Not only will you find vendors selling a variety of vintage and modern toys such as GI Joe, Barbie, Mego, Transformers, Star Wars, Super Powers, Masters of the Universe, a wide variety of 1:6 scale figures and accessories plus magazines, comic books & lunch boxes; but you’ll also have an opportunity to meet celebrities, see costumers and check out a variety of toy dioramas!”
Of course, with a huge editing task and only one person to tackle it, you can expect a couple of glitches. You may notice a GI Joe Adventure Team symbol curiously placed on the title card. That might just be covering up an extraneous “s” that was caught at the last minute before the show was rendered.
One mistake that wasn’t caught was the mis-spelling of Tim Weedn’s name in the credits. As cool as it sounds, his first name is not really “Time.” I can practically guarantee that there are several errors of omission in the credits for this report. Apologies to all involved. The credits were written after midnight on a long day. Tim and his wife, Lisa are the masterminds behind “Joe @ Fifty: 1964-2014.”
You will see Lisa in the parachute drop section of our video, launching “Ooga Shaka” from the fifteenth-floor, down into the lobby at The Marriott.
You may notice a few other cool things and odd quirks in this report. The background music is taken from the musical library provided by YouTube, and you may recognize some of it from earlier videos that I’ve posted. The reason we did this was to minimize the chance of this video being blocked by frivolous complaints from fly-by-night music companies. In some instances in the past, complaints filed with YouTube have blocked some of our videos from being seen in some countries and on certain devices.
Using YouTube’s library doesn’t eliminate this. Last December five companies filed complaints against one of my clips, claiming to own the rights to “Jingle Bells,” a song which has long been in the public domain. By using music provided by YouTube, slapping down these complaints is much easier.
We were better prepared to record Radio Cult this year, and chances are very good (make that definite) that you will see them in the future on Radio Free Charleston and the RFC MINI SHOW.
You may also notice a fleeting glimpse of The General Lee, the car from “The Dukes of Hazzard.” It’s a cool car, but I have a personal policy against showing the Confederate battle flag on my videos, unless it’s in an historical context. You might see it in a Civil War diorama or a scene from a movie set during the Civil War, but you won’t see it on a T Shirt, ball-cap, band banner…or painted on the roof of a car. It’s my personal decision, and it’s not up for debate.
Besides, who’s going to look twice at The General Lee when The Batmobile is parked two cars away? Seriously, we finally got a real Batmobile here in PopCult. (the one in South Charleston last year was an incomplete copy)
I hope you enjoy this video report from JoeLanta. We are already planning to return next year, not just because it was so much fun and there were so many cool toys and great people, but also so that we can try to remember to shoot more footage of all the cool stuff we missed. Your PopCulteer is going to take a few days away from JoeLanta coverage, but we will return with a long post next week that will be chock-full of links to the vendors and guests that you can see in our video report. You know, just in case you see something you’d like for yourself.
Sunday Evening Videos: JoeLanta, so far
March 23, 2014 by rudy panucci
As you know, if you’ve been reading PopCult lately, I have been posting a ton of videos from JoeLanta, the amazing toy convention devoted largely to GI Joe that I went to last week in Atlanta. Sometime Monday I will post a long recap with lots of footage of the show, but until then, this post will collect the videos I’ve posted so far.
First up, musical visits to two collections of cool stuff. Check out Tim Merritt’s Mint-in-box collection, and Bryan Tatum’s gigantic warehouse-sized collection…
Panels and more after the jump!
Below you will find discussion panels devoted to GI Joe at Fifty, the State of the Hobby and collecting Marx Toys…
Finally, we take a look at our tour of Senoia, Georgia, the town that stood in for “Woodbury” on “The Walking Dead” and then we sit in on a panel devoted to the show.
Check back Monday for our big recap show with scenes of the dealer’s rooms, the parachute drop, the band Radio Cult and more!
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